How can this guy be such a good orator and such a poor writer? I literally can't stand reading any of his essays, short stories or novels but can listen to his interviews for hours. What is it about DFW that makes him such a competent speaker? How would one write in a soothing, non-preachy way (just like DFW speech)?
How can this guy be such a good orator and such a poor writer? I literally can't stand reading any of his essays...
Noah Morales
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Samuel Jones
dude what? he's a fucking horrible speaker. have you seen that charlie rose interview? chk chk chk
Thomas Smith
these posts cancel eachother out making him an okay writer and a decent speaker.
Nathaniel King
Would only be the case if praised his writing, so he's a shitty writer and an OK speaker.
Alexander Brooks
He just has this very monotone, dripping voice. Whenever I hear "Wittgenstein thought the most serious and profound questions could be discussed in the form of jokes." I just want to give an interview.
Ryan Young
he's a great writer
Aaron Scott
Wow.. a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in three posts... even Hegelian dialectics demonstrate DFWs mediocrity
Hunter Gray
no he's a good essayist
he's bad at everything else
Christopher Brooks
His short stories were good. Everything else...
Austin Rivera
Caleb Adams
Is he really good at either?
Daniel Lee
what do you guys think about this axl rose bandana head wrap thing?
is this Veeky Forums?
Nathaniel Murphy
It was a common 90s thing you 18 year old Portuguese stem major steam playing child
Hunter Brooks
"Sorrry senpai i'm mumbling"
>blushes away
Lucas Lee
Does it make any sense to you?
Landon Rogers
i hate reading him too but love his interviews. i dont see how IJ couldnt have been trimmed.
Joseph Davis
it was trimmed, DFW's original draft was twice as long.
Landon Foster
He was too sincere.
Matthew Powell
The_Bookchemist BTFO'd DFW in one of his latest videos.
Hudson Mitchell
>How can this guy be such a good orator and such a poor writer?
Because his literary ambition was to be taken seriously as a major literary player, and his "feats" stink thickly of that desperation. The slop is bad.
For his public persona, on the other hand, he wanted the be the normal, "gee, shucks" sincere and honest midwestern.
Caleb Brown
His essays are incredibly embarrassing. His 9/11 one is probably the worst essay published that decade.
Carter Bennett
well he needed to keep his door constantly open somehow
John Carter
one of my favorite books but he could've cut 20-35 percent.
Nathan Edwards
I was wanted to make a thread on him, might as well post this here:
Does anyone else get the feeling that they're reading a different Infinite Jest from the people who praise it? Reading the things people write about it, it sounds like really nice and interesting book that makes a point about irony and entertainment, and a lot of other things. All while making the reader "feel loved", as someone described it.
The problem is, that while reading it myself, I haven't come across any of those things. If they are there, they are buried so deep beneath the tennis circlejerking and other non-important trivia, that it makes them almost non-existent. Whenever I pick it up, I often find myself having to slog through chapters upon chapters of superfluous and trivial verbiage, all while getting bombarded with unnecessary information along the way. It made me genuinely hate tennis
Anyone else feel that way?
Hunter Allen
Like, it feels like that bits about honesty, irony, sarcasm, etc are all falsely attributed to Infinite Jest while actually are nowhere to be found in it, almost. There were some really enjoyable episodes in the book that were a pleasure to read, I don't deny that, but they're kind of few and far in between. If the book was 1/3 of it's length or 2/3 or something, sure. But as it is, it's just all over the place.
Jack Walker
I like tennis; I played it a lot in highschool though. I also like the verbiage, but that might have been a novelty thing. I really thought it was a very impressive book all around, and even though the plot was [very] slow sometimes, I enjoyed the wiring enough to keep going.
I should have never come to this board; I've never heard anyone talk about this book before and my opinions are very fragile. I don't want Veeky Forums to ruin it for me, but what if I'm wrong?
Mason Walker
>wiring
It might have been an advantage for me that I didn't come into the book with any expectations. I never heard any of these things about it, I just read one of his short stories and thought it was amazing, then looked him up and bought IJ. I don't disagree with you, but it might be that you were mislead by people who were so impressed with themselves for reading the whole thing that they felt the need to talk it up. I didn't think much of the book from any larger perspective, but I'm not good at analyzing books that way anyhow. The writing was really very good; anything other insights are probably influenced by personal perspective (not to say they're wrong).
Julian Williams
> I've never heard anyone talk about this book before
Is it your first day? It gets discussed here all the time, like almost every day. If you've already read it, you're fine.
It was probably entertaining reading about tennis since you played it yourself, but imagine reading about, say, cricket in the same excruciating detail. I would drive you nuts, unless you're secretly a fan of it or something.
Ryder Foster
the guy was clearly on pills during this interview though. even through all his clear autism symptoms he still made some great points.
Jaxon Cruz
he used it because he had huge anxiety attacks everytime he was in public. it catched his sweat so his forehead didnt become wet.
Jayden Sullivan
I think he meant he never heard it discussed before he came to this board.